I owe Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson an apology. Several weeks ago I wrote a column about a group of developers known by the acronym HABDI, and an internal feud that raised doubts about their ability to turn nearly 2000 acres of Homestead Air Reserve Base into a commercial airport…
Best Drain-Hole Avoidance I just got back in town a couple of days back and found a wonderful surprise: Once again Reggae Beat was chosen by New Times as Best Reggae Radio Program. Many thanks. This year has found me rather busy, and there has been many a Saturday I…
As the scandal at the Port of Miami deepens, it’s reassuring to see a new voice emerge as an advocate for honest government. “Allegations of misconduct, though allegations, raise many concerns that must be addressed,” Dade County Commissioner Miriam Alonso announced last week. “Undoubtedly the criminal probe from the United…
Lead Stories *In May in Santa Fe, New Mexico, schoolteacher Roger Katz, age 50, was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for having sex with a fourteen-year-old student. He was convicted despite his compelling explanation that he had fallen in love with her after she saved his neck in a…
Lead Stories *The New York Times, describing several civil disturbances now raging in Zaire as President Mobutu’s 30-year reign ends, reported in April about the “quixotic on-and-off conflict waged by Mai-Mai guerrillas, who hide in the jungle and smoke large quantities of marijuana.” People fear the Mai-Mai because it is…
Best Deliberately Offensive Falsehoods On behalf of our family of on-air jazz personnel, I would like to congratulate Steve Malagodi and his Modern School of Modern Jazz and More program on WLRN-FM (91.3) for once again winning the Best Jazz Radio Program category in the latest “Best of Miami” issue…
One For the Money, Two for the Beards In his article about ZZ Top’s apparently accidental success (“Accidents Will Happen,” May 8), Rob O’Connor touched on but failed to grasp the real attraction of this group. It’s the beards. Say what you will about “other rock bands of similar caliber,”…
Lead Stories *In February Michael Knowles, awaiting trial in Virginia for killing his wife, filed a $100 million lawsuit against advice columnist Ann Landers, charging that she had defamed him by publishing his letter on how tough the Internet can be on marriages. Wrote Knowles: “Today is my wife’s 44th…
Lead Stories *In April the town council of Cambre, Spain, conferred legal, marriagelike status on nontraditional unions, but controversy still raged over a couple that was not even of the same sex. The precipitating event was the recent nuptials of Daniel Pena and his sister Rosa Moya Pena, who have…
Political Consultants and Other Villains In Robert Andrew Powell’s story regarding Miami Beach City Manager Jose Garcia-Pedrosa (“The Autocrat,” May 1), you referred to me both in the text of the story and in the caption to my photograph as a “political consultant.” Quite frankly, I deem this attribution libelous,…
There is an old Irish toast: May you be in Heaven an hour before the devil even knows you’re dead. Former Miami mayor Steve Clark was a great fan of Irish toasts — as well as Scandinavian toasts, Italian toasts, Russian toasts, Cuban toasts, and pretty much any toast that…
Lead Stories *The Times of London reported in March that when an employee of the James Beauchamp law firm in Edgbaston, England, recently killed himself, the firm billed his mother about $20,000 for their expenses. Included was a bill for about $2300 for another employee to go to his home…
Thank You for Ruining My Wedding I find it somewhat humorous when I hear or read about Loring Frank, as I did in Ray Martinez’s article “Rabbi with a Cause” (April 17). My husband and I once availed ourselves of Loring Frank’s services, and all we have left is bitter,…
The E. Howard Hunt Grading Curve Concerning Jim Kelly’s mostly excellent article on the CIA’s South Florida presence(“The Fidel Fixation,”April 17), I’m sorry he didn’t check with me about the alleged “wild and all-too-public night on the town” involving Guatemalan exiles. If it ever took place, I was not involved…
Lead Stories *Family values: In March the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that a local woman, age 66, and her husband are searching for a surrogate mother for their deceased son’s sperm so that they can fulfill their longing to be grandparents. And three days earlier, a Milan, Italy, newspaper reported…
When Sal Magluta goes on trial later this year for bail jumping, it’s too bad he won’t be able to plead temporary insanity. He’d get off for sure. After all, what jury wouldn’t believe that Magluta was just a few ounces short of a kilo when he walked away from…
During HABDI’s regular monthly board of directors meeting in March, Augustine Ajagbe announced his desire to add to the seven-member panel Dick Judy, the controversial former aviation director for Dade County. Although it looked like Ajagbe’s proposal, several other board members suspected it was really the handiwork of HABDI’s president,…
Lead Stories *The Nashville Tennessean reported in February about state government engineer Ken Robichaux’s lonely, ten-year crusade to wipe out both the U.S. system of measurement and the metric system, in favor of one that combines weight, length, and volume into a single set of measures denominated as (not surprisingly)…
We Love Art, We Just Don’t Want to Pay for It Judy Cantor’s article regarding the arts in Miami Beach (“Everybody’s a Critic,” April 3) indicated that the city’s public officials are doing little to support the Art in Public Places Committee and its initiatives. I take this opportunity to…
Yet More SoBe Snobbery I want to respond to Kirk Semple’s article “South Beach Goes Palm Beach” (April 3). The Ocean Drive business people who started this campaign against Carnival Miami South Beach are guilty of plain old snobbiness, if not outright racism. Perhaps they couldn’t deal with the fact…
Lead Stories *Saddam Hussein filed a libel suit in February in Paris against the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur for its September 1996 story in which he was referred to by other Arab leaders as, among other things, an “executioner,” a “monster,” a “murderer,” “a perfect cretin,” and a “noodle.” *In…
The Miami Heat is in the midst of its finest season ever. The team, under the leadership of coach Pat Riley, has secured a spot in the playoffs and is on the verge of winning the Atlantic Division for the first time in the franchise’s nine-year history. Attendance for Miami’s…
